Jim Goetz is a conservation scientist from Upstate New York with a broad range of interests in natural history, behavioral ecology, behavioral economics, language, and understanding the intertwined social and ecological aspects of how people interact with each other and their natural environment. At VCE, Jim dedicates about three-quarters of his time supporting Caribbean colleagues to develop local individual and organizational capacity to conserve local species and ecosystems, and the rest to coordinating the Bicknell’s conservation working group, IBTCG.
After studying Biology and German at SUNY Potsdam in north New York, Jim lived in Europe for the next five years as a translator in Germany and teaching English in Spain. In the mid 1990s, Jim returned to the US to work as a field biologist, including fieldwork on Bicknell’s Thrush in Vermont and New York. He pursued a Master’s degree at SUNY-ESF researching the fascinating breeding ecology of Bicknell’s Thrush.
Since then, he has worked and lived in the Caribbean—chiefly in the Dominican Republic and Haiti—for multi-year stints. In addition to early distributional studies on Bicknell’s Thrush, Jim conducted path-breaking research on the Black-capped Petrel and the Golden Swallow, learned Spanish and Haitian Kreyòl, and directed a forest conservation program in La Visite National Park, in Haiti.
Publications
Townsend, J., K.P. McFarland, C.C. Rimmer, W.G. Ellison, and J.E. Goetz. 2015. Bicknell’s Thrush (Catharus bicknelli), The Birds of North America Online (A. Poole, Ed.). Ithaca: Cornell Lab of Ornithology; Retrieved from the Birds of North America. doi:10.2173/bna.592
McFarland, K.P., C.C. Rimmer, J.E. Goetz, Y. Aubry, J.M. Wunderle Jr., A. Sutton, J.M. Townsend, A. Llanes Sosa, and A. Kirkconnell. 2013. A Winter Distribution Model for Bicknell’s Thrush (Catharus bicknelli), a conservation tool for a threatened migratory songbird. PLOS ONE 8(1): e53986. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0053986. (Abstract)
Townsend, J.M., C.C. Rimmer, K.P. McFarland, and J.E. Goetz. 2012. Site-specific variation in food resources, sex ratios and body condition of an overwintering migrant songbird. Auk 129: 683-690. (Abstract)
Rimmer, C.C., J.E. Goetz, E. Garrido Gomez, J.L. Brocca, P. Bayard, and J.V. Hilaire. 2010. Avifaunal surveys in La Visite National Park–last vestiges of montane broadleaf forest in eastern Haiti. Journal of Caribbean Ornithology 23:31-43.
Goetz, J.E., K. P. McFarland, and C.C. Rimmer. 2003. Multiple paternity and multiple male feeders in Bicknell’s Thrush (Catharus bicknelli). Auk 120: 1044-1053.
Rimmer, C.C., K.P. McFarland, W.G. Ellison, J.E. Goetz, and H. Ouellet. 2001. Bicknell’s Thrush (Catharus bicknelli). In The Birds of North America, (A. Poole and F. Gill, eds.). The Academy of Natural Sciences, Philadelphia, and The American Ornithologists’ Union, Washington, D.C.
Hobson, K.A., K.P. McFarland, L.I. Wassenaar, C.C. Rimmer and J.E. Goetz. 2001. Linking breeding and wintering grounds of Bicknell’s Thrushes using stable isotope analyses of feathers. Auk 118:16-23. (Abstract)
Rimmer, C.C., K.P. McFarland, and J.E. Goetz. 1999. Distribution, habitat use, and conservation status of Bicknell’s Thrush in the Dominican Republic. El Pitirre 12: 114.
Rimmer, C.C., J.E. Goetz and K.P. McFarland. 1998. Bird Observations in threatened forest fragments of the Sierra de Neiba. El Pitirre 11(2):15-17.
